Drug-Impaired Professionals

By Robert Holman Coombs

Book Overview

"I started out snorting a couple of lines a night and ended up injecting and snorting about three grams a day."--That could be your dentist talking.

"I worked a lot with hangovers and made lots of mistakes when coming down off acid."--That might be your nurse.

"The patient was waking up and I was out cold."--And that was some unlucky patient's anesthesiologist.

Professionals trusted with our well-being are the last people we suspect of drug addiction. And yet they are at least as likely as anyone else to abuse alcohol and other drugs--a well-kept secret finally aired and fully examined in this powerful book. Drawing on more than 120 personal interviews with addicted physicians, dentists, nurses, pharmacists, attorneys, and airline pilots and those who treat them, Robert Coombs gives us a startling picture of drug abuse among "pedestal professionals." He discusses addiction as an occupational hazard for those with the easiest access to drugs, the greatest sense of immunity to their perils, and the most extensive means (and reasons) for hiding their problems. Throughout, the interviewees' eloquent and often harrowing testimony reminds us of the human drama behind the exhaustive research and analysis presented here. Their bittersweet stories bear out Coombs's contention that recovering addicts, free of their magical elixirs, can become more complete people than they were before addiction.

From the biological, psychosocial, and spiritual roots of addiction to the equally diverse approaches to recovery, to the merits and failures of government drug policy, Drug-Impaired Professionals offers a clear and complete overview of a complex problem that affects nearly every family in America.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674001745
• ISBN13: 9780674001749
• Release Date: May 2000
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.2" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Excellent resource for both lay reader and professional

Dr. Coombs presents a very readable format managing to communicate both educational data and personal anecdotes as illustration. This is a growing field and a very important one today. Our social denial has kept us from looking clearly at the illness and the ways it manifests in our caregivers. There are benefits to both the afflicted and those whose lives they touch when recovery is given the support described in Dr. Coombs's book.

Worthwhile examination of a significant problem.

The abuse of drugs, legal and illegal, by professionals has been a subject little discussed within the hearing of outsiders. Coombs breaks the silence to quite rightly view addiction as an occupational hazard, detailing the extraordinary stresses, ready access, and high performance expectations among contributing factors, as well as emotional elements and a surprising degree of naivete. He examines the dynamics of addiction; the vulnerabilities and developmental stages, and discusses the recovery tools available to break free. Some may question the author's inclusion of hashish and marijuana in the array of addictive drugs, and the unwary reader who acts on Coombs' assertion that "LSD produces symptoms similar to those of stimulants" (page 296) is in for a bit of a surprise, but taken as a whole the work is a valuable survey of a significant problem which deserves wider discussion, within the professions and without. (The "score" rating is an ineradicable feature of the page. This reviewer does not "score" books.)